TOPIC: Small Independent Back Office Software

I had some interesting conversations at ShoWest with several small independent owners. Now, I'm curious to find out how many other theatres there may be in the same situation.

Does your theatre use manual ticketing instead of an automated point of sale system?

I'm looking into making some changes to our current LED solution (stripping out all of the LED related processes) and adding a few other features. We currently have a Feature Editor, Show Scheduler and some basic operation reports. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone interested in a FREE copy of the new product for testing and further development. I am not interested in creating a new Point of Sale System, but ...

If you do not use a point of sale system and would be interested in helping us create a new product (and getting the new product free), please contact me at
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Would this be for rolled (hard) tickets or for fan-folded Automaticket machines?
I've seen conversions to the Automaticket machines that use a shaft encoder to interface the ticket macine to a computer.

The owners I spoke with at the tradeshow were interested in a simple program that would allow them to schedule movies, have some basic operational reports (Usher Cleaning, Projectionist Schedule, etc), possibly an inventory tracking system and possibly an employee scheduler. I have the first part of it that I think would be fairly easy to seperate out into a new program and would like to hear ideas for other functions that the theatre owners / managers may find useful without touching the actual ticket sales or concession sales. Goal is a very low cost software program that can automate some of the day to day functions and make everyones life a little bit less hectic.

Our current sign solution has the show scheduler, feature editor and reports already... thus I would begin by seperating those into a new program and adding on the functions that other managers / owners would be interested in.

At our movie theater, we tear tickets by hand off a roll. We don't have any computer/automated systems in place; everything is done the "old-fashioned way." We have been reluctant to take on the task and the expense of changing it. I'm sure there are a lot of theaters that have made the change to automated systems. Would love to hear from someone about how they did it.

I probably get the award for reviving the oldest thread, but here goes.
At thanksgiving, I finished installing a computerized ticketing and boxoffice point of sale systems. I went the extra and got touch screen monitors, electronic cash drawers, magnetic card readers, and computers for each station as well as upgrading the back office station. The software I got was RTS developed by Greg Borr and Rob Chabot. We had been selling printed gift tickets and books, and in the years past, they sold quite well at the holidays. They have a feature in the software that allows to sell a Debit card that you can fill at the selling stations depending how much the patron wants to purchase. I decided on a minimum of 5 dollars. The cards can be used at either the Box office or concession, so it is really popular with parents. These cards are refillable, and you can track the use. By using this debit system, I just doubled the amount of gift cards over last year. My town has 5000 people in it,and we are small, with three screens, and first run. I encourage anyone to look into this debit card thing, and RTS for any of you independants. While people would buy a single ticket, these cards have given them a chance to spend a lot more on a gift, driving up what can only be called, an interest free loan for the theatre.
lance